Safety Campaign Addresses Traffic Circles In Cheyenne

The Cheyenne Metropolitan Planning Organization is emphasizing traffic circle safety in the city’s eleven roundabouts as part of a new safety campaign.

Tom Mason, director of the Metropolitan Planning Organization, said Cheyenne and many other cities are moving towards traffic circles since they are safer than traditional 90-degree intersections.

“If someone happens to run a stop sign or a red light, a person hitting inside the standard intersection it’s at a right angle and its impact is far greater," said Mason. "But with modern roundabouts, the traffic going into the circle is deflected to the right, so if they happen to hit somebody inside the roundabout it’s at an angle crash.”

That doesn’t mean everyone has gotten the hang of traffic circles, yet. Mason said there have still been several collisions, especially at the two-lane traffic circle at Pershing, 19th Street, and Converse Avenue.

Mason said adapting to roundabouts can be tricky since there weren’t as many of them when many people were learning to drive.

“Every year there’s hundreds of more roundabouts all over the country," said Mason. "Every state, every city in the country is moving towards building roundabouts when they can, because it really does reduce the crashes and the damage done to the vehicles, and the injuries are so much less in roundabouts”

Knowing your lane, yielding to traffic already in the roundabout, and staying under 20 miles per hour are all part of Safe Streets Cheyenne’s keys to avoiding crashes

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